Insect mystery here.... Looks like a hoverfly or a wingless moth? It looks like egg laying but could be struggling with spider?
@marcusbugs.bsky.social
Bug fan, book fan, especially bug book fan. Usually looking at bugs while walking the Westie. Blurry photos a specialty 🙁. #LitterPicker. Edinburgh, Scotland
Nice grasshopper seen today... Still trying to get these in my garden!
Here's the working prototype of my setup. It's a 3D-printed black block with a socket to hold a watch glass, and a 3D-printed diffuser that sits on top of the block. Recessing the glass greatly reduces stray light & glare. #NaturalHistoryCollections #Macrophotography #FocusStacking #DIYImagingStage
Craig B@mutillidae.bsky.social · 6d agoI've been working on a better setup for capturing focus-stacked images of immature insects in alcohol...and it's working well. 🙂 #NaturalHistoryCollections #Macrophotography #FocusStacking #Psephenidae #APennyForYourThoughts
A bit of bathroom wildlife - what appears to be the large Owl Midge (or Moth Fly) Clogmia albipunctata. Large for an Owl Midge, that is. And very smart too, under the microscope. #KentNature #Diptera
Super excited to share that my latest paper from my PhD is now published! 🎉 If you're into camera traps, citizen science, animal individual ID or pine martens this ones for you! 😆 doi.org/10.1002/rse2... Big thanks to my co-authors and everyone who in the MammalWeb community who contributed! 📷
Citizen Science for Individual Identification of Pine Martens Martes martes From Camera Trap Footage
Camera traps generate large volumes of wildlife footage, but identifying animals to the individual level remains challenging and time-consuming. Using European pine martens in the Forest of Dean as a....
doi.org
It’s getting hard to ignore the (honestly appalling) number of comments implying that this finding should be another reason to not-so-subtly suggest that spiders deserve to be terminated in any number of grisly ways. (1/6)
Guardian Australia@australia.theguardian.com · 4w agoThis huge hairy-legged Australian arachnid may be the fastest spider on the planet
"I embrace you with my whole heart." Shortly after he became the second-youngest laureate of the Nobel Prize, Albert Camus sent his childhood teacher this almost unbearably beautiful letter of gratitude: www.themarginalian.org/2014/11/19/a...
Albert Camus’s Beautiful Letter of Gratitude to His Childhood Teacher After Winning the Nobel Prize
“I embrace you with all my heart.”
themarginalian.org
Agriphila tristella, the common grass-veneer apparently. Also demonstrates my lack of car washing!
A 'moss' springtail (Neanura muscorum) navigating a fungal forest. But it's not alone — those transparent blobs are in fact curled-up, hitchhiking nematode worms! Read about all the incredible ways soil animals tackle life's challenges, in my book #TheWorldBeneathOurFeet, publishing in one month! 🧪
Beewolf on patrol. It wasn't staying still... Might be something else.
Meet the French seamstress turned scientist who solved the ancient mystery of the argonaut, pioneered the aquarium, and laid the groundwork for the study of octopus intelligence www.themarginalian.org/2022/12/26/j...
The Seamstress Who Solved the Ancient Mystery of the Argonaut, Pioneered the Aquarium, and Laid the Groundwork for the Study of Octopus Intelligence
“I armed myself with patience and courage, and only after several months managed to dissolve my doubts and see my research crowned with happy confirmation.”
themarginalian.org
This horsefly (Hybomitra montana) is caught in a spider web. They have amazing eyes, and won't often pose for photos. They have a painful bite. Does this make spiders your friends?
Frida Kahlo returned her borrowed stardust on this day in 1954 and left us, besides her visionary art, a model of how to live with the courage of atheism and the freedom of expression www.themarginalian.org/2019/09/03/f...
Art, Atheism, and the Freedom of Expression: Frida Kahlo’s Searing Protest Letter to the President of Mexico
A spirited defense of “public freedom of expression and opinion, the means of progress of every free people.”
themarginalian.org
Here's a magnificent white crusty lichen. I was going to ask for IDs, but feel this is unfair having looked at @britishlichensociety.org.uk's identification tips britishlichensociety.org.uk/identificati... and realised the amount of work involved!
The second #birddivination I ever made, and the one I return to most often. As always, find it as a solo print and part of the deck of 100, along with the story and process behind them, at almanacofbirds.org
It's great to know how quickly nature can restore itself when we stop damaging it. It's high time we put nature first, for without it, we are nothing. www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2026/ju...
Abandoned farmland restored to wildflower meadow without sowing seeds
Abandoned farmland can be transformed into wildflower-rich grassland habitat without the need for expensive and labour-intensive seeding, finds a new study by UCL researchers.
ucl.ac.uk
Following on from my recent posting of Beetleface /Beetlebum photos, here's a series of beetles from today's walk. First off was a Carabus glabratus carrying off roadkill.
